Under New Zealand jurisdiction there are two different categories of vape retailers: specialist and general. All specialist vape retailer (SVR<\/a>) businesses have to be approved by the Ministry of Health, and must make a separate approved vaping premise (AVP) application for each store they want to operate. There are currently 1,337 approved AVPs in New Zealand, ranging from the tiny vape shop carved out<\/a> of your local dairy to the flash-looking stores operated by tobacco giants. The country has more SVRS than liquor shops (bottle stores account for 930 of our 4,802 registered off-licences<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n The numbers get a bit trickier once we zoom out to general vape retailers: places like dairies, supermarkets and service stations. They\u2019re permitted to sell a limited range (no fancy flavours) as long as vapes aren\u2019t their primary product. These businesses have to file a regulated product seller (RPS) notification with the Ministry of Health, whose current list \u2013 shared with The Spinoff in response to an Official Information Act request \u2013 totals 1,694 registered businesses. Some of those businesses operate multiple stores, of which there are more than 2,100.<\/p>\n Adding that figure with AVPs gets us to more than 3,400. That\u2019s a lot of shops. But it\u2019s far fewer than an estimate from a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n In 2024<\/a> the Ministry of Health estimated there were more than 7,000 individual stores selling vapes in New Zealand, which were being run by somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 retailers.\u00a0<\/p>\n What\u2019s going on? Has the number of vape shops really halved since 2024? It certainly doesn\u2019t feel like. Perhaps these businesses are simply not registering with the authorities? According to a Ministry of Health spokesperson, \u201cthe earlier estimate of 5,000-6,000 retailers, and references to 7,000+ stores, were based on broader system information, including historic notifications and intelligence about market activity. These figures are indicative rather than precise point-in-time counts, as the retail environment is dynamic and businesses frequently enter, exit, or change how they operate.\u201d<\/p>\n The spokesperson said that while \u201cdifferences between estimated retailer numbers and current notifications do not necessarily indicate widespread non-compliance\u2026 we recognise there is a gap between the estimated retailer numbers and the current RPS notifications, and the\u00a0 ministry continues to work closely with Health NZ to support compliance and remind retailers of their obligations under the act.<\/p>\n \u201cAs retailers are visited, investigated, or reviewed by enforcement officers during their usual activities, their registration is checked and followed up if not in place.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Registration is part of the increasing regulation of the industry. The SVR regime was introduced in 2020, when the Labour government passed the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Act. Disposable vapes have been banned since June 2025 (although pre-filled pods are still allowed). The rules around promotion changed at the same time and marketing tightened up too.\u00a0<\/p>\n One retailer The Spinoff spoke to had converted part of their dairy premises into a separate vape store after the SVR regulations came in, a process that was \u201cvery hard\u201d due to the cost and time involved. Was it worth it? Today vapes only make up a very small portion of their business, they said. \u201cIt\u2019s not big.\u201d<\/p>\n While neighbourhood shops are the most visible segment of the market, there are also online stores \u2013 132 approved internet sites are registered with the Ministry of Health. A 2026 study by University of Auckland academics for the Public Health Communication Centre found only 18% of online retailers<\/a> were fully compliant with the suite of new regulations.<\/p>\n Regardless of who\u2019s doing the selling, all vaping and smokeless tobacco products are designated as notifiable products in New Zealand, which means they have to be registered with the Ministry of Health. Its current list includes 1,267 vaping devices, 1,037 different kits, 3,496 varieties of \u201cnicotine salt vaping substance\u201d and 848 of \u201cfreebase nicotine vaping substance\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n The risks associated with vaping are increasingly under the microscope. Last month a study<\/a> by the University of Canterbury, published in New Zealand Medical Journal, linked vaping with an increased, though \u201cunquantifiable\u201d, risk of cancer<\/a>. It\u2019s now more common than smoking, with 11.7% of adults vaping daily, according to the 2024-2025 New Zealand Health Survey<\/a> \u2013 that\u2019s around 509,000 people, up from 33,000 in 2015\/16. They\u2019ve overtaken the 6.8% of people who report chuffing darts every day, down from 16.4% in 2011\/12. Both rates are higher in the country\u2019s most deprived neighbourhoods (21.1% vape daily and 12.9% smoke) where there are a disproportionate number of SVRs<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, youth vaping appears to be in decline. While the 2022-2023 New Zealand Health Survey reported<\/a> 15% of 15-17 year olds vape daily, a 2025 survey by Action on Smoking and Health<\/a> showed regular youth vaping had halved from a high of 20.2% in 2021 and daily vaping by year 10 students had dropped from 8.7% in 2024 to 7.1% in 2025.<\/p>\n Despite the reduction, recent regulations and the 18+ age limit introduced back in 2020, underage teenagers are still buying vapes. Of the 157 stores visited during the Ministry of Health\u2019s Controlled Purchase Operation last year, 10% were found to sell vapes to under 18-year-olds (the legal age of purchase and possession in New Zealand).<\/p>\n Whatever the true number of vape retailers in New Zealand, Marnie Wilton says it\u2019s too many. \u201cThey\u2019re just everywhere now, and the location of them normalises this product around our kids and our young people,\u201d says the Vape-Free Kids NZ co-founder. The ubiquity proves vaping has moved far beyond being a tool used to quit smoking, says Wilton. \u201cIf these are supposed to be helping smokers\u2026 why on Earth have we got so many stores, if that\u2019s really what vapes are about?\u201d <\/p>\n Vaping Industry Association of New Zealand (VIANZ) chair Jonathan Devery doesn\u2019t agree the number of vape stores in New Zealand should be reduced, saying \u201creducing access to the most effective smoking cessation tool risks pushing some adults back towards combustible tobacco [cigarettes etc]\u201d. VIANZ says that regulations should focus on preventing youth access and helping adult smokers move away from combustible tobacco. \u201cWe support targeted enforcement and sensible tightening of loopholes. We do not support arbitrary reductions in store numbers where there is no evidence this would improve outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n He points to Australia\u2019s pharmacy-only model as a cautionary example. \u201cRestricting lawful retail access has not removed demand; instead, it has pushed much of the market into illicit and harder-to-regulate channels.\u201d VIANZ also shared concern about the store-within-a-store model, saying it was inconsistent with the original intention of the retail regulations. \u201cClosing that loophole and requiring specialist vape retailers to sell only vaping products, nicotine replacement therapy and directly related cessation products would better target opportunistic retailers, while retaining stores that provide genuine specialist knowledge and support for adult smokers.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilton believes the high number of vape shops is beyond the capacity of the country\u2019s enforcement officers and thinks fewer outlets would be easier to monitor. \u201cIf you limit the supply, you can keep tabs on it.\u201d While the regulations that have come in in the last few years are a \u201cstep in the right direction\u201d, she doesn\u2019t think they go far enough. For example, the distance of a specialty vape store to a school was restricted to 300m in 2023 but doesn\u2019t apply retroactively. \u201cAlmost 30% of New Zealand\u2019s vape stores are within 400 metres of a school,\u201d she says, citing a 2024 study by the University of Canterbury. Research by the University of Auckland last year found 44% of schools were within a kilometre of a specialist vape retailer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They\u2019re supposed to be highly regulated. So why can\u2019t authorities provide a reliable figure?\u00a0\u00a0 Let\u2019s rewind to 2023…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[19883,111,43,139,69,640,23933,2935,235900,24665,1059],"class_list":["post-465700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-ministry-of-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-regulation","tag-smokefree","tag-society","tag-vape-free-kids","tag-vapes","tag-vaping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}At least they agreed on something. (Source: Newshub)<\/p>\n
Vape stores in Auckland (Photos: Google Maps)<\/p>\n
Smoking\u2019s down, vaping\u2019s up (Source: MOH New Zealand Health Survey 2023\/24)<\/p>\n